Jan

11

I listened to Mittens’s victory lap after the primaries last night and tried to put my finger on what was wrong about it. I could feel it in my bones, but couldn’t put my finger on it until this morning. Now I’m listening to Joe Scarborough going on and on about “the politics of resentment” — another phrase I just haven’t been able to quite get my head around and it CLICKS.

Dear Mittens, when people call you a vulture capitalist, it has nothing to do with resenting your wealth.

That’s like saying people hate a bully because he’s stronger than them. No. If that were true, they’d dislike bodybuilders in general. They don’t. They dislike people that hurt them. And that’s the issue with people who made their money like you did — and who thinks that it should be a model for the country. There are thousands of wealthy people who engaged in free enterprise and lifted everyone around them up with it. True venture capitalists do that — they find someone with an idea and they fund it, and if it does well EVERYONE makes money. Venture capitalists do not come into an existing company, break it down, tear it apart and walk away with the lion’s share of the money while everyone else licks their wounds, and if they’re lucky, thanks the gods that they were left with the little bit they were able to cling to.

There are not always winners and losers in business. In the best business models, everyone wins — some may win bigger than others, but everyone walks away feeling like they gained something. Or, more to the point, everyone stays because they believe there is something to gain. That’s not the business model by which you made your money. And that’s not the country in which most of us want to live.